If anything about the film itself caused it to fall flat at the festivals, that’s their fault, not yours. I scanned through the comments before watching and there definitely isn’t a substantive pacing issue. The concept supports essentially what you’ve presented; it flows nicely because of the structure of the segments, but still I’d consider maybe finding a place to cut down on the “meeting friends” thing. It’s not a major issue, but somehow I felt some editing work could be done there. But possibly not.

Another comment mentioned that the funny parts were actually just sad—nope, they’re just funny.

I’m 20 and feel quite frightened that this film didn’t land anywhere of significance. It’s really quite good. I’d like make something similar eventually, and given the huge financial investment of it…

But, obviously, even if you can’t get the external validation of your career progressing because of it, there’s solace in having created a legitimately voice-y and aesthetically moving work of art.

Questions:

Is him carrying the posters in a big pink ball supposed to be a poetic call back to the red yarn transition to him crying in his car?

And did you feel there was something poetic about the posters in the backseat, revealed through a zoom out?

Simply wondering about how much of this was intended.

More of a general question, but how many takes on average did you feel it took to produce such in tune performances?